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String or Green Beans

A boiled green bean dish with a white sauce made from butter, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

String or Green Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the beans

  1. Cut the beans lengthwise once or twice, then crosswise.

  2. Almost cover the beans with boiling water and add butter.

  3. Boil for one hour, allowing the water to reduce to about ½ cup.

  4. Season with salt during the last 15 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Blend flour and milk, then cook until well combined.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Green beans + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green beans
Form the main body of the casserole and provide its texture as they cook down.
Dripping or butter
Adds fat and richness to the beans as they cook in the water.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Milk
Provides moisture and a creamy base for the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the cooking liquid to about ½ cup. As water boils off, the remaining liquid concentrates in flavour and the beans can scorch if it evaporates too far. Checking the level during the hour helps the liquid reach the intended amount without drying out the pan.

Swap the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, milk, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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